COIN

COIN, a piece of metal converted into money by the impression thereon of certain marks or figures. COIN differs from MONEY as the species from the genus.

Ancient Coins are those chiefly which were current among the Jews, Greeks, and Romans. Their values and proportions are as follow:

Of these, the drachma, didrachma, &c. were of silver; the rest for the most part of brass. The other parts, as tridrachm, tribolus, &c. were sometimes coined. The drachma is here, according to the generality of authors, supposed to be equal to the denarius, though there is reason to believe that the drachma was somewhat heavier. See DRACHMA and DENARIUS.

The Grecian gold coin was the stater aureus, weighing two Attic drachms, or half of the stater argenteus, and exchanging usually for twenty-five Attic drachms of silver in our money..... 0 16 1 $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$
According to our proportion of gold to silver..... 1 0 9
There were likewise the stater Cyzicenus, exchanging for twenty-eight Attic drachms, or 0 18 1
Stater Philippicus and stater Alexandrinus, of the same value.
Stater Daricus, according to Josephus, worth fifty Attic drachms, or..... 1 12 3 $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$
Stater Crecius of the same value.

Of these, the denarius, victoriatus, sestertius, and sometimes the as, were of silver, and the rest of brass. See AS, &c. There were sometimes also coined of brass the triens, sextans, uncia, sextula, and dupondius.

The Roman gold coin was the aureus, which weighed generally double the denarius; the value of which, according to the first proportion of coinage mentioned by Pliny, was..... 1 4 3 $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$
According to the proportion that obtains now amongst us, worth..... 1 0 9
According to the decuple proportion, mentioned by Livy and Julius Pollux, worth..... 0 12 11
According to the proportion mentioned by Tacitus, and which afterwards obtained, whereby the aureus exchanged for twenty-five denarii, its value..... 0 16 1 $\backslash frac\{1\}\{2\}$
Modern Coins will be treated of under the article MONEY.

Coinage. UNDER this head it will be proper to give a brief account of the constitution of the royal mint, as well as of the different processes which come under the general term Coinage; for all these processes are conducted under various checks emanating from the constitution which the legislature has thought proper to give to this royal establishment.

The royal mint attained its constitution of superior officers in the eighteenth year of the reign of Edward II., and, with very few alterations, continued as then established till the year 1815. Of the alterations in this latter year we shall have occasion to speak hereafter.

Ancient establishment of the mint. Edward appointed a master, warden, and comptroller, king's and master's assay-master, and king's clerk, besides several inferior officers, whose duties will be mentioned hereafter. Previous to this period we have very little information as to the system of coinage pursued at the various mints which the kings of England had throughout their dominions. The Reverend Roger Rudding, in his valuable and laborious Annals of the Coinage of Britain and its Dependencies, gives it as his opinion that the moneyers were in very early ages the only officers employed in the fabrication of the money. On the early Anglo-Saxon coins are found, besides the names of the monarchs, those of other persons, who are with great probability conjectured to have been the moneyers, because on the later Anglo-Saxon money the names of those officers frequently occur, with the addition of their title of office. From the circumstance of their names being inscribed on the coins, it is reasonable to conclude that they were responsible for the integrity of the money, and that likewise they were the principal officers of the mint, because inferior officers would have given security to their superiors, whose names would have appeared on the money, as a pledge to the sovereign that it was duly executed. The silence also of the Anglo-Saxon laws, and of Doomsday Book, as to other officers of the mint, whilst they so frequently mention the moneyers, greatly corroborates the opinion that they were the only persons employed in the Anglo-Saxon and early Anglo-Norman mints, except, perhaps, occasional labourers; and it is observable, that when in the reign of Henry I. the money was so much corrupted as to call for a sentence of the most exemplary severity on the offenders, the punishment is said to have been inflicted upon moneyers only, without the least notice of any other officer. This was also the case upon a similar occasion in the reign of Henry II.

Mr Rudding is unable to determine the exact period when it became necessary to place some permanent superintending authority in the mint to prevent the bad practices of the moneyers; but it is probable, he says, that such an officer was appointed between the twenty-sixth of Henry II., when the moneyers alone were punished for the adulteration of the money, and the third of Richard I., when Henry de Cornhill accounted for the profits of the cambium of all England, except Winchester.

It is not improbable that this first warden of the mint was appointed for the purpose of collecting the revenue arising from the seignorage charged upon coinage of bullion.

The object of the warden's appointment might also extend to the inspection of the fabrication of the money, with a view to prevent the master and his moneyers, or the moneyers alone, from taking any undue advantage of the king or the public by the adulteration of the coin.

The most important officer, however, upon the establishment of the mint, with a view to the maintenance of the standard purity of the coin, is the king's assay-master; and there are persons mentioned as holding this office in the sixth of Henry III. As this officer had the assaying of all the bullion after melting for coinage, and after it was coined, it is obvious that the very existence of the credit and honour of the mint and sovereign depended upon the duties he had to perform; and such an officer probably existed from the earliest period of the fabrication of money, though our records do not accurately define the precise date of his appointment.

The next officer of importance in the mint is the comptroller; and the first whom Mr Rudding's researches have discovered held the office between the 5th and 15th of Edward II. His duty, distinct from that of the other officers of the mint, is to make out annually a roll, called usually the comptrol or comptrolment roll, containing an account of all the gold and silver coined, and to deliver it on oath before one of the barons of the exchequer. It is always written upon parchment, and forms a permanent record of the coinages of the mint.

The king's clerk and clerk of the papers is the next check-officer upon the establishment; as king's clerk, he acts as a check upon the whole process of the coinage, the same as the warden and comptroller; as clerk of the papers, he keeps a book of record of the transactions of the mint. Of the creation of this office we have not been able to find any record.

These are the principal check-officers of the mint, and no doubt were appointed as mutual checks upon each other's integrity, and to watch over the interests of the king and other importers of bullion into the mint.

There is another officer upon the establishment, whose duties are important, but of whose origin and appointment we have not been able to find any notice. His title is the master's assay-master, and his duty consists in assaying every ingot of gold and silver brought to the mint for coinage; and upon his integrity the master and worker relies that no bullion shall be received into the office for coinage but what is conformable to the standard of the realm.

Mr Rudding remarks (vol. iii. p. 1), that at a very early period of the history of Britain, when the communication between its different parts was extremely imperfect, it became necessary to establish mints and exchanges, not only in the chief city, but also in various other places, for the purpose of supplying the neighbouring districts with money to carry on their commerce. To this necessity alone such establishments are to be ascribed; and accordingly we find, that by degrees, as the communication opened, the subordinate mints and exchanges sunk into disuse, and one fixed in the metropolis was found to be amply sufficient for the supply of the whole kingdom.

Athelstan appears to have been the first monarch who enacted any regulations for the government of the mints. In his laws, which were promulgated about the year 928, he provided that one sort of coin only should be current throughout the kingdom, and granted to various towns by name a number of moneyers proportionate to their size and consequence, and to all boroughs of inferior rank one moneyer each.

These mints were under the control of that within the Tower of London, from which, as paramount, the dies were issued, and for which the moneyers paid a regular

Coinge. fee upon every alteration of the coins. They also paid an annual rent, which, in the city of Lincoln, amounted to £75 (according to the statement of Deedsday Book), a very considerable sum at that time. The rents of the other mints were, however, much inferior to this.

To increase the facility of distributing the coins made at these mints, exchanges were appointed in various places, from whence new coins were issued, and in which bullion was purchased for the supply of the mint; and it appears that our monarchs claimed the exclusive privilege of purchasing bullion, and appointed proper officers, to whom they delegated that branch of their prerogative.

It appears to have been the duty of these officers not only to exchange the current coins of one metal for those of another, but also to receive wrought plate and bullion, and foreign coins, according to their fineness respectively; and as the exportation of the coins of the realm was prohibited, they furnished persons going out of the kingdom with foreign coins in exchange for English, and also supplied merchants and strangers coming into the kingdom with English coins in exchange for foreign. These exchanges of coin were regulated by a table, which was hung up in the exchanger's office.

This office has ceased to exist since the reign of Charles I. Henry earl of Holland was the last keeper of the exchanges between England and Ireland.

Besides the officers mentioned, there was another of great importance in early times, who bore the title of cueinator. Mr Ridding mentions this officer as being hereditary, and, as far as he had discovered, the only one in the mint that was so. The engravers of the dies seem to have been appointed by him, and to have been under his immediate cognizance. By him they were presented to the barons of exchequer, before whom they took the usual oath of office; and it was probably his duty to see that all the dies (as well those which were used in the paramount mint in the Tower of London, as those which were issued from thence to the subordinate mints) were of the same type. This was no doubt a circumstance of great moment, when so many mints were allowed to be worked in various parts of the kingdom. When these mints were abolished, and the mint in the Tower became the only source from whence coins were derived, the office sunk into disuse. By right of office this officer claimed the old and broken dies as his fee. An officer of a similar kind exists in the mint at this day, who is called clerk of the irons, whose duty it is to superintend the manufacture of the dies for coinage; but he has no power to appoint the engravers of the dies.

In the early history of the mint, as at present, the master of the mint fabricated the coins at certain charges per pound weight. He had his regular establishment of melters and moneyers, to whom he paid certain rates for melting and making the monies, reserving for himself a certain fee for his trouble and responsibility. For in all his engagements with the crown the master had to bear all waste and charges arising in and out of the coinage of gold and silver. Mr Ridding mentions, that in the tenth of Edward III. the workmen of the mint of London petitioned the king for an increase of their allowance for coinage, alleging that they were at that time at greater expense, and bestowed more labour in forming the monies, than had been usual in former times, so that they could not maintain and continue such expense and labour unless their allowance was increased.

The king being willing to grant their petition if just, commanded John de Wyndesore, warden of the mints of London and Canterbury, together with Lapone Roger, and others experienced in such matters, to inquire whether the allowance was sufficient, and if not, to deter-

mine what addition should be made; and they were ordered to make their report in chancery, under their seals, without delay. Coinge.

A warrant was in consequence issued, and Lapone and Roger Rikeman, exchangers of London, and Stephen Boke, having been examined on oath by the warden, the following report was made:—That having inquired diligently respecting the necessary expenses of the master of the mint and the workmen, namely, of alloy, clay, and salt, and other things used in the making of new money, and also of the expenses occasioned by the waste arising from the whitening of the halfpennies and farthings, on account of the increase of the alloy, and from the hardening of the metal of the said coins in working and coining, they were of opinion that the work could not be carried on without an increase of 3d. for each pound at the least; and with that the workmen ought reasonably to be contented. And whereas of old they received for all costs, colour, &c. for a pound of halfpennies 7½d., and for a pound of farthings 9½d., that they should receive for the former 10½d., and for the latter 12½d., so that the master should have of increase 2d., and the workmen 1d.

It was the duty of the warden to take an account of all the bullion of gold and silver intrusted to the master and worker of the mint to be coined; and in this duty he was aided by the comptroller and king's clerk, who, in their respective capacities, kept books of entries of the receipt of bullion, and its delivery in coin to those who brought the bullion for that purpose. Besides these duties, the check-officers just named had the superintendence of the different processes through which the bullion had to pass, from the assay of the ingot to the delivery of the coin to the importers; and it is more than probable, that, in the infancy of the mint, when the demand for coin was very limited, the whole processes of the coinage were conducted in one apartment, and that the master, warden, comptroller, and other principal officers of the mint, accompanied the sovereign from place to place in his dominions, and actually superintended the fabrication of the coin at the mints of the towns where he sojourned. The progressive civilization of the country, the increasing demand for money, and the more permanent residence of the monarchs in London, give the mint of the Tower a predominance over all others; and these circumstances very probably called for the appointment of other check-officers, who are now upon the mint establishment, such as the surveyor of the meltings, whose duties are to superintend the melting of the pots of gold and silver, and to weigh the proportion of fine gold or alloy which may be necessary to produce the standard of the money; to take samples of all pots melted, and carry them to the king's assay-master, for him to ascertain if the standard has been adhered to by the melter; and to lock up the said pots, of which samples have been taken, in the melter's stronghold, of which he has one key and the melter another, and there to retain them until the king's assay-master has declared that they are of the proper standard. In the infancy of the mint the duties of this officer were probably performed in the presence of the warden, comptroller, and king's clerk; but the increase of duties in the mint-office, in the receipt of bullion and delivering of coin, probably rendered it necessary to relieve the principal officers from these duties, as well as from those of another officer called the surveyor of the money-presses, whose duties consist in seeing that good dies are used, and clean money made in the coining room.

When these and other officers were in full power, operating as checks upon the coinage, and consequently upon the master and worker, they received their salary and fees from the warden, as chief of the check branch of the establishment.